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How are you liking it otherwise Nick? The more seasoned Uniden users seem to be positive on it. Some newbies are bashing it and jump on every small glitch yelling "the sky is falling, the sky is falling". I'm looking forward to your comments as you know what you are doing. Most curious if have yet tested the front earphone issue to see if you also experience the loud hiss. How about overall sound, sensitivity, and selectivity via the various local systems?

I read the Android app version for the wifi use may not be out for a month or two. I seem to recall reading that there was greater problems with the IPhone app and that might be longer.

Won't be here until Monday. I'm not getting good vibes about the Sentinel software. I presume you can basically ignore the included database and create your own. I tried to edit the database info and the program doesn't accept edits. :(

Aww darn. Hopefully your UPS is not the same where I live. We seem to be at the end of a route and deliveries are always very late in the afternoon to early evening. So hopefully you don't have the painful task of waiting all day for them to arrive.

I know you can edit the master database in the HP1 sentinel file as I have done it many times. I haven't tried it on the 536 file but will give it a try. The problem is that if you perform the weekly DB update your changes are wiped out. You can edit your raw "favorites" file of course with any editor (I use Notepad). I imported my HP1 favorites into the 536 software for kicks and all seemed to look ok. I created my own specific titles, department names, and TG alpha tagging so that the info is easier to read at-a-glance when driving.

Nick
I just confirmed that you can edit the master database. The file is located under "program data" --> "Uniden" --> "BCDx36HP_Sentinel". You'll find a long list of "HPD" files along with a cfg file that indicates what file number belongs to what state. I just edited a frequency for one of the services in a specific state file. I then started Sentinel and looked at that state and specific service - it was indeed changed.

One of the nice things is that you could create your own master DB and save it to the memory card and use it for local use and update it manually as needed. You can then keep a second SD memory card for the "official" weekly updated DB with you in case you were traveling.

Hopefully this helps you.

Okay thanks. I'll look into that. The scanner just arrived so will start playing it shortly.

That little black box thing is the Wi-Fi dongle. Good thing they did it this way... but it still may not fit in my console. :(

BTW, the picture doesn't do the radio justice. It does look pretty slick. Need to see if the contrast is adjustable...

The AMBE+2 vocoder sounds great... haven't heard any TDMA (or P25) yet but it's past the usual hours for KCMT. Will keep an ear out...

Video of Boeing P25 voice... really impressive:

http://home.comcast.net/~k7cj/536vid.mp4

I'm curious how dim you can set the display, the XT's white won't go low enough for me (but I can change the color).

It can get pretty dim actually. There are the usual (3) levels of brightness but even the highest setting isn't very bright, imho. BTW, the and pic and video makes the display look more "blue" when in fact, it's a very muted blue-white color.

I'll make a video of the dim levels later tonight.

Still no go with X2-TDMA. It's just not seeing the control channel.

I saw your post. When you say "its not seeing" do you mean it can't hear the control channel or do you mean it can't decode it? You may have already tried this but if not - try setting up a new P25 system by hand (don't use Sentinel) and only enter the one single active CC frequency, then do a ID search. Maybe see if that works. You should be able to see the "DAT" flashing. If you get that far but still can't decode the CC, you might need to do some manual adjusting or the P25 threshold. Take if off the auto setting and do a manual adjustment swing to a low or high setting. You may have already done these things as you are high on the expert scale. But FYI if not.

Yeah I didn't try this yet. I'll try this when I get home.

BTW, as a I said, on the 996xt, you can HOLD and scroll through the CC frequencies and see if you're getting a signal. I can't seem to do this on the 536HP.

While searching it does show a signal so I'm presuming it's seeing the CC but it's not decoding from there...

I'm wondering if the included database confused it... it's probably set to P25 and not X2-TDMA.

Okay after a bit more playing I got it working. I had to enter in a new system. Still not sure why the default version didn't work... Everything looks set properly in my favorite's list.

The quality is slightly better than the PSR-800 but the speed of the PSR-800 is vastly superior. I'm not sure if it's due to decode issues or what -- but the PSR-800 is quick. The 536HP is a little sluggish in picking up active TGIDs... even on the same TGID.

Might have to tweak some of the P25 settings...